Interludes
by Bastetian
Summary: Threequel to my stories Confessions and Complications. A series of interconnected vignettes in the lives of the characters in one convenient story. Each chapter has an individual rating/any applicable warnings inside. Schofield/OMC, Slash.
1. Romeo Take Me

**A/N: **I was pleasantly surprised by how well people took to the Confessions/Complications series and especially to my OC, Jack. So to all the people who encouraged me to keep writing this, thank you! This story is for you. If you messaged me asking me for a specific scene, I will definitely get around to it. You'll know when I do because that chapter will be dedicated to you. That said, if anyone else has something in particular in mind that they want to see, as you now know, I am open to requests so feel free to ask away. I love knowing that people are actually interested in what I'm writing.

If you haven't read Confessions/Complications, I would probably recommend you do so before reading this fic or you are in for a big surprise.

This story is a little different to the two previous stories in this series. There is no plot in this story at all. Instead, it's a series of interconnected vignettes about their lives. They'll range from fluffy right up to explicit, are not in chronological order and may be very short to some that will be several chapters long and have their own internal plots. I'm marking this story as complete seeing as each "interlude" is complete on its own but I will continue to post more of them as time goes on.

And for those of you waiting patiently for an update on Little Wonders, it's in the works. Thanks for your patience with it.

And finally, I've decided each one of these "interludes" will have a song lyric as its title. I'm putting my ridiculously eclectic taste in music on the line here, so there will be electronic cookies/hugs for people who can guess what song each one comes from. Thought we'd start with a nice easy one for this chapter.

Really finally this time, there's a link to a picture of the dress on my livejournal which has the same username. If you're on livejournal, I love friend requests and happily friend back.

**Rating for this Interlude: **K

Romeo Take Me

The day had been an unmitigated disaster. Mr Murphy it seemed was out to play as everything that could have gone wrong, had gone wrong.  
The band had quit at the last minute and the replacements were suitably terrible.  
Everyone present agreed that allowing an American company to handle a traditional Taiwanese banquet had been a mistake.  
It had even rained.

And yet somehow, the day was perfect.

Buck Riley Junior, dressed in his full dress blues, was strangely calm. Not ten minutes earlier he had been such a nervous wreck he'd barely been able to stand up and his mother had had to practically dress him but now, standing beside the alter he stood straight-backed and proud. Beside him stood one Shane M. Schofield, not dressed in his own dress blues but a simple well-tailored black suit. Someone, the groom's mother he reckoned, had even stuck a rose through his button hole.

"You didn't forget the rings did you?" Buck asked, working out his last few nerves. His eyes never left the door where his bride would soon appear.

"Nope," Shane replied, eyes also forward.

"And you gave them to the ring boy?"

"Was that what I was meant to do with them?" Shane said teasingly, earning him a fleeting but hard glare from Buck. "Yes, of course I gave them to the ring boy."

"One day," Buck growled, "one day it'll be your turn and then you'll realise how terrifying this is."

Shane snorted a laugh.  
"I don't think so," he said, "and even if I did get married, I've got a sneaking suspicion I'll be the one stuck down that end."

He inclined his head towards the top of the aisle, where the bride would walk.

Buck spared him another second to throw a quick glance his way, eyes full of laughter.  
"It's because you're the short one," he said seriously.

Schofield was about to retort that five foot ten wasn't exactly considered short outside the marine corp but at that moment the music swelled and the doors swung open, revealing Juliet in a breathtaking blow. Shane took a moment to watch Buck's face as she walked down the aisle. Though his expression barely changed – it hardly ever did – apart from a small private smile, he lit up with an inexpressible joy as he focussed his whole being on the woman walking down the aisle, who radiated it right back at him.

Shane decided he could handle being the one stuck at the other end of the aisle if it meant he got to see that look on the face of the person waiting at the other end.

Juliet was, in a word, lovely. Her white silk gown was simply elegant in a way that drew attention to the beauty of the bride, not the dress. The clean flowing lines swept over the curves of her body, including the now noticeable baby bump. At just over five months pregnant, she wasn't yet swollen hugely but the graceful curve was definitely visible. Instead of trying to hide it, she had chosen to celebrate it with the only detail on the dress – a large fabric flower – sitting nestled between her breasts and the growing bump as homage.

She clutched her father's hand as he brought her down the aisle and kissed his cheek with fond, damp eyes when he placed her hand in Buck's.

She giggled lightly, as though not even the rain could dampen her happiness, throughout the service.

She wrapped her arms around Buck's neck and let her whole body lean into his when they shared their first kiss as husband and wife.

She clung to Buck, her arm wrapped around his waist as they walked back down the aisle and laughed a full bodied laugh when she threw the bouquet deliberately to the young and over-excited flower girl, who actually squealed.

She cried when she saw both her own mother and Buck's mother were crying and she danced through the reception as though no one was watching.

And Buck, he couldn't take his eyes off her.

They were dancing a slow, tender dance, holding each other close in the centre of the dance floor when a young woman brazenly walked up to Schofield, concealed, he had thought, quite successfully in a dark corner.

"Isn't it the best man's prerogative to dance with every lady?" She said, shamelessly twirling an olive in her empty martini glass.

Schofield looked the woman up and down. In her short, tight red dress, she oozed confidence and with a sultry face and a figure even Shane could recognise as damn good, she had reason to be. In heels that looked as though they could be a weapon in disguise, she was able to look Schofield evenly in the eyes.

In a rare event, she actually could look him straight in the eyes with no reflective lenses between them.  
Shane found the experience strangely uncomfortable, like he was exposed.

Earlier that morning, Mother and Skip had burst into the dedicated men's dressing room and demanded to know exactly what he was planning to do about his eyes.

Schofield had swapped a look with the other groomsmen and was glad to note that they all looked as confused as he felt.

"You can't wear sunglasses to a wedding," Mother said exasperatedly.

Skip held up a thin brown tube and smiled in a way that made Schofield very, very nervous.

The two women had insisted that Schofield's skin tone wasn't that different to Skip's and proceeded to bundle him into the nearest chair and smother his face in things he didn't want to know about. There was a cream that made his scars magically disappear and then some powder that made the cream disappear.

Schofield strongly suspected he was now wearing makeup.

But Mother's glare promised bad things would happen to him if he struggled so he sat patiently whilst they played with his face – or rather, Skip played with his face as though he was a doll she had once owned and Mother supervised – and lo and behold, by the time they were done, he looked like a younger version of himself who had never set foot in Bosnia.

You also couldn't tell he was wearing make-up.  
He was pretty glad about that.

If it ever got out that the Scarecrow had worn make-up in public, he didn't think he'd ever live it down.  
Actually, he knew his marines would make sure he never lived it down.

Buck chose that moment to come flying into the dressing room in a mild panic but he stopped in his tracks when he saw Schofield.

"What happened to you?" He said incredulously.

Schofield pointed at Skip.  
Skip pointed at Mother.  
Mother shrugged her shoulders as if to say, it had to be done.

Then the pair of them left and all the men present breathed a sigh of relief.

Which was how Schofield came to be being hit upon by a woman without the protection of his sunglasses.

He was saved the trouble of rebuffing her in a hopefully polite but firm way when a large hand fell across his shoulder and a voice with a thick twanging accent said from behind him, "He's taken."

The woman thankfully, got the picture at once and left with a flirtatious wink and final lewd glance in both their directions. For some reason, since coming out, Schofield had been the recipient of more female attention then he'd ever had in his life and that was after they knew he was gay.  
Women, it was safe to say, confused him.  
A lot.

Schofield turned to meet the broad smiling face of Captain Jack Taylor. For a long moment, both men just stood in companionable silence together and Shane was pleased. On this day when everything was an honest and open tribute to love, he wanted to spend it with Jack.

They didn't touch though.

Baby steps.

"Do you think about it?" Jack asked after a minute, his arms thick with muscle crossed across his chest.

Schofield looked at him, not comprehending and Jack clarified, "Getting married?"

Shane knew the answer to that question without having to think.  
"No," he said shortly.

If Jack was taken aback by the abruptness of the answer, he didn't let on. His face remained impressively neutral other than the slight quirk of his lips he always wore and his posture didn't change at all. His arms rose and fell with his steady breathing as he fixed his eyes on Schofield.

Shane had never in his life contemplated marriage – other than his brief and disastrous flirtation of the idea with Libby – and he had plenty of reasons for it. As a kid growing up he'd been far more preoccupied with not falling for anyone than trying to find someone to spend the rest of his life with. Then he joined the marines and the marines made sure he would never be able to find someone to spend the rest of his life with. Now the whole world seemed to be changing around him and he'd wanted to find his feet before thinking about anything like that. But if the government ever did get their ass into gear and make getting married a possibility for him then he didn't want to have to run away to get married somewhere that wasn't his hometown. So after years of running away from the idea of marriage, it seemed like he was finally waiting for it to catch up to him.

But one day it would catch up and then maybe, just maybe, he would have to think about that answer again.

Schofield looked up to find Jack still looking calmly at him.  
"Maybe," he corrected.

Around them the music changed as a male voice began to croon about the beauty of his lady.

"Want to dance?" Jack asked in his quiet, even voice.

Shane grinned.  
"I'm not sure this is quite the song for us."

Jack laughed at him, grabbed his hand and dragged him to the dance floor.  
Other than an attractive lady in a red dress nursing a martini, nobody else seemed to notice them particularly amongst the throng of dancing couples. It was refreshing.

"Why do I feel like I'm earning gay pride brownie points?" Jack muttered, pulling Schofield that little bit closer against him.

Shane laughed and had to look up just a little to meet Jack's eyes – a much brighter blue than his own deep ones.  
"We both are," he said.

**A/N: **This one was originally titled "This Way Became My Journey" from the song 'Book of Days' by Enya which personally, is the song I want to walk down the aisle to but I thought it was a little obscure so I changed it.


	2. A Bee Can Sting a Bear

**A/N: **Sometimes it seems to me that Matthew Reilly is deliberately trying to mess with me. A very long time ago now, I started building a rather elaborate headcanon in which Schofield was gay and had an Australian boyfriend named Jack. The character was actually named after Jack Twist from Brokeback Mountain and also because every third man in Australia is called Jack.

Then MR went and wrote a book with an Australian protagonist called Jack. :/

As part of that headcanon, I also gave Schofield two half-siblings (same father, different mother) and they rated a brief mention in Confessions. In my head, the younger of those two siblings was a girl by the name of Lily. What can I say, it's always been one of my favourite names.

Then that book with an Australian protagonist called Jack also happened to have a little girl called Lily. O.o

And so I decided I couldn't possibly keep both names the same because that would just sound ridiculous. So Jack got to keep his name and my character Lily became amalgamated with another called Melanie.

And now I find out that Melanie is a reasonably commonly used name in fanfic for Knight's wife. I've run out of emoticons to appropriately express my frustration

So I've gone back to a conversation I had a long time ago with GoddessofOlympia who helped me pick out the names for some characters for a story that's still in the pipeline to be written. Goddess, you have no idea how often I go back to that conversation looking for inspiration for characters names! Third time lucky, Shane's sister now has a name!

And you might remember, it feels like I wrote it a long time I ago so I've forgotten, but I did change one little canonical detail at the end of complications. Instead of sending Schofield off to teach at Parris Island, I might have sent him to teach at Top Gun. I mean seriously, California is so much cooler! (Not literally, it's literally a lot hotter than South Carolina but you know what I meant.) As for how the rest of his old unit ended up in California as well, well, that Interlude is still to be written. :)

I'm working off the same family situation for Schofield as in Confessions which was written before AoT and as such is not canonical. So I had his mother as the daughter of Michael Schofield and not his father. His father and mother were never married – hence why he has his mother's surname – and his father went on to marry a different woman and have two daughters. So Shane and the sister mentioned in this chapter are half-siblings.

**Rating for this Interlude: **K

A Bee Can Sting A Bear

The carefully controlled chaos of early morning on a marine base was interrupted by the unexpected sound of the doorbell ringing through the crowded common area. As they were still trying to organise housing together on the base, Shane Schofield was currently living in the instructors quarters on Miramar base whilst Captain Jack Taylor was left bunking with his – once Schofield's – unit in barracks housing. Schofield, not having any classes to teach until that afternoon, had chanced the hour long drive from Miramar to Camp Pendleton to have breakfast with his old unit before they headed off for the days exercises. They were being deployed for their first mission without him in just over a week and were training hard but the sense of seriousness had yet to set in.

Shane was refusing to acknowledge any feeling of loss.

Still, even though they had only spent a few months apart, it was a bit of a novelty for Schofield to have his unit (and boyfriend) back on the same side of the continent as him. He was making use of every opportunity. Though this morning, he was perhaps regretting it as Astro and Skip – already bright eyed and bushy tailed with four cups of coffee down their throats respectively – had begun an impromptu and loud game of 'piggy in the middle.'

Bigfoot had been cast in the role of the 'piggy,' willing or no.  
It was his breakfast bowl they had stolen.  
It would have been less irritating had the bowl not still been half full of milk and soggy cereal.

Rebound dodged another slosh of escaped milk – which to the marines credit, there were less of than expected – and got up to answer the door. The pain that had been threatening to flare behind Schofield's temples became a fully-fledged headache when he returned, brimming with mischief and said in a sing-song voice, 'Scarecrow, there's a woman at the door asking for you and she's got a kid.'

The bowl finally clattered to the floor and every eye in the room was turned upon him with burning curiosity. Some of the politer marines – Bigfoot and Book II – at least attempted to be subtle but the majority of them were simply blatant. Shane was just glad Mother wasn't there. His own eyes sought out his boyfriend's from behind their silver lenses. Jack's lips were twitching with what looked like amusement and his eyebrows had practically disappeared into his floppy brown hair. Shane was relieved to see that he looked more bemused than concerned but also felt that he should be a little insulted that the idea of him fathering a child was clearly so unbelievable that his boyfriend found it funny and not threatening.

"It's not my kid," he said, injecting a dose of exasperation into his officers voice and watched as at least half the faces in the room crumpled with disappointment. Now that would have been good gossip.

"I should hope not," A female voice replied. "That would be gross, not to mention illegal."

The speaker was a young woman in her mid-twenties with long black hair and dark blue eyes suspiciously similar to Schofield's own. She carried herself with all the self-assurance necessary to walk uninvited into a room full of marines and smile. Soft cotton clothes hung loosely off her obviously fit body, her skin was tanned a deep golden brown and her black hair was bound in a messy plait, tendrils escaping here and there. Setting her bags down at her feet, a mess of bracelets jangling around her wrists, the marines took in a small boy of no more than five who promptly launched himself across the room and into Schofield's arms.

Swinging the boy high up into the air and bring him back down again to balance on his hip, Shane crossed the room and pressed a kiss into the woman's cheek. He draped an arm around her slim shoulders and dragged her round to face the group.

"This is my sister, Brielle," he said.

"Bree," she corrected him. "Don't call me Brielle."

Shane ignored her and turned his attention instead to the boy in his arms. Like his mother and uncle, the boy had inherited his grandfather's intense blue eyes but his hair was fair – a sandy brown colour that curled at the edges, grown overly long until it fell past his ears and skirted the edges of his swept up eyelashes. Actually, the colour of it reminded Shane of Jack's and with a pang, he realised that if they had been able to have a child that was both theirs, this was what he might have looked like.

"And this young man," he said over the excited babble that had broken out amongst the marines, "is far too big to be my nephew, Cedar."

Even though he'd heard the joke a thousand times before, the little boy still laughed and buried his head in Schofield's chest, little fingers searching out his dog tags and running the small, metallic beads through them. Over the boy's head, Shane's eyes found Jack.  
Perhaps he too was struck by the sight of Schofield with a child in his arms – just another perfectly ordinary thing that would be so much harder for them – but his eyes were unusually sombre.

Schofield took a deep breath, steeling himself, as he set the boy back down on the floor and watched him run off to play with a toy stashed in the bags.

"There's someone I want you to meet, Bree," he said, his eyes never leaving Jack's.

It may have been women's intuition that told Skip that Shane had never shared the information he was about to impart with his sister and that despite the open curiosity written across her face, this should be a family moment. She shepherded the remaining marines of the unit out of the common area, leaving Shane alone with his sister and Jack.

Bree's eyes flickered between the two men.

"This is my," Shane begun but he stumbled over the next word, struggling to find the right one. Boyfriend, partner, life mate; they all sounded wrong. He finished lamely, "Jack."

Bree quirked a single eyebrow at him and smirked in a look that Shane knew so well and had used against her as often as she used it against him.

"Your Jack?" She said, bemused. "Does this mean you finally pulled your head out of your arse and found a boyfriend?"

Shane had to admit, the sound that came out of his mouth could only be described as a splutter. By the time he'd gathered his wits and formulated a response to his little sister knowing he was gay possibly longer than he had, she had pushed past him and was happily making friends with Jack.

"You knew?" He managed to spit out, interrupting their conversation.

Bree shrugged her shoulders, turning away from Jack.  
"You had the biggest crush on the quarterback in Junior High. It's not a big deal."

There, Shane had to disagree with her. He had been bruised and bloodied on other people's fists, lost plenty of nights of sleep, damn near lost his mind with worry and confusion, actually lost his job, had to get a new job and was finally starting to get back up onto his feet after nearly twenty long and difficult years. It was, emphatically, for him a big deal.

She meant it to be supportive – that for her, nothing about her big brother was any different than it had ever been and she never lost any sleep over it. But of course, she hadn't walked in his shoes so she couldn't know - in the way that Jack did - that it was a big deal.

He let it slide.

"You never told me," Schofield said, his gaze fixed on his obviously too perceptive little sister.

"_You_ never told _me_," She countered. "I was just waiting for you to figure it out for yourself."

"Whatever," Shane shrugged off the semantics. For starters he knew he'd never win an argument with Bree - he'd been trying since he was three without any success – and there were more pressing questions to be asked. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

She rounded on him with a look on her face that would have caused a lesser man to quail.  
"Oh, no, no, no," she said, "You're not getting out of this. You said you'd watch Cedar for me tonight."

"When?" Shane asked, rapidly trying to remember making any such promise.

"I spoke to you on the phone two weeks ago, Shane," Bree answered, looking plaintive. "I told you I had a job interview and I couldn't take him with me. It's just one night. I'm already running late because you weren't at the marine base you're supposed to be living at so don't screw me over now. I don't have time to argue, I really need this job."

Shit.

She might've been right.

Schofield had spoken to his sister a few weeks back. They had always been closest of any of their family, a pair of black sheep but where Shane had gone into the military like his father and grandfather before him, Brielle had chosen a very different path. As soon as she had turned eighteen, she had defied her family's wishes and used her college trust fund to pay for a ticket to Indonesia. The intervening years between now and then she had spent in the jungles of north Sumatra, saving the endangered orang-utan species. Her return, five years ago, with an infant in tow and no father to speak of had been the final straw. Estranged from her family, Bree had taken to spending a few months at a time stateside, earning a pittance in jobs her father would have considered beneath them, before heading back to the jungle.

Some would have argued it wasn't the best life she could have given her son.

Playing in the jungles with a rare access to wild animals in their native habitat, getting the best of both the jungles and the city, developing an appreciation for nature alongside his education, growing up with his mother close at hand – Shane thought it was pretty ideal.

Last time they had spoken, it had been via a seriously dodgy satellite connection. Between the static and the reverb, Shane had been lucky to make out every second word. He probably had agreed to watch his nephew without realising it.

"It's fine," he replied, laying his hands reassuringly on her shoulders, "I can take him tonight. How much trouble can one five year old be, anyway?"

Bree, already half way out the door, snuffed a laugh.  
Behind him, Jack made exactly the same sound.

"Thanks Shane," she said, stopping only to grab her handbag from the pile of bags on the floor. "I've gotta run but it was nice to meet you, Jack."

"Same," Jack replied, holding a hand up in farewell. As soon as she was out the door, Jack turned to Schofield, looking quizzical. "Your nephew's name is Cedar?"

Schofield shrugged.  
"My sister's a hippie."

Jack trailed Schofield into the quieter T.V. room, where Cedar had set himself down in front of a cartoon - a rare treat in the Indonesian jungles. Leaning against the doorway, he looked past Schofield's shoulder at the boy.

"Are we having problems with the word 'boyfriend' again?" Jack asked softly. Standing this close to Shane, he was practically speaking into his ear. "Because I really thought we got past this ages ago."

Schofield spun where he was standing, startled, so that he was facing Jack.  
"It's not like that," he replied, "I'm not ashamed of you or anything like that. Boyfriend just sounds like something a thirteen year old girl would say."

"If you were dating a girl, would you call her your girlfriend?" Jack asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Well, yeah, but," Shane began but Jack cut across him.

"Then you can call me your boyfriend," he said. He pressed a swift kiss against Schofield's lips before jerking his head in the direction of the boy. "If the pair of you could try not to destroy the base while I'm gone, that'd be great."

Shane didn't have time to protest that he didn't normally destroy things on purpose, or at least, not unless it was totally necessary, before Jack had jogged off to join the rest of his unit who had been patiently waiting in the morning sunlight.

Schofield sighed and reached for the phone, he needed to call one of the other instructors and see if he couldn't get cover for his classes this afternoon.

To his credit, when the marines returned several hours later, sweaty and muddy, the barracks were still standing.  
They were perhaps a little worse for wear but they were standing.

They trooped back into the common area to a sight rarely seen - Shane Schofield attempting to cook something.

Given the man's proclivity for explosions and destruction, letting him into an area filled with knives, flammable objects and heavy frypans seemed a bad idea but nonetheless, there he was, in the kitchen, looking murderous.

Cedar was nowhere in sight.

The majority of the marines wandered straight past him, suppressing smirks on their way to the hot showers.  
All except for Jack.

Braving significant bodily harm, he walked straight into the kitchen and peered curiously into the bowl which appeared to be filled with some sort of dough, sprinkled with liberal amounts of eggshell.

"Cedar wanted to make cookies," Schofield explained before Jack could even ask. "I let him crack the eggs and he cracked them alright but then he threw the whole egg, shell and all, into the mix."

Jack didn't laugh.  
He didn't tell him that's what you get for trying to cook with a five year old.  
Instead, he seized a handful of flour and threw it at Shane so that his black hair ended up flecked with white.

"What was that for?" Shane retorted, indignant as he tried to wash the flour off, succeeding only in turning it into a sticky, gluey mess.

"I dunno, I thought it was funny," Jack replied, smirking as he reached into the back of the cupboards and pulled out a long forgotten box that would be Schofield's saving grace, a packet mix for chocolate chip cookies. "What do you say we start again?"

Three hours later, Jack had ended up with a fair amount of the failed cookie dough mashed into his hair in retaliation for the flour; Skip had played too many rounds of hide and seek, at which Cedar proved to be exceptionally good to the marines' consternation; Astro had introduced him to anime; Sanchez had taught the boy to swear in his third language; Bigfoot had provided his expertise in cooking chicken nuggets for dinner; Rebound, surprisingly, had offered to read him a bed time story before finally, they could all collapse onto the couches with their dinner of chicken nuggets and chips and left over chocolate chip cookies, of which there were no more leftovers by the time they were done.

Shane realised with a start that if they ever did have children of their own, his former unit, his friends, would spoil them rotten.

Tucked safely between them, Cedar slept with his head on Schofield's lap, curled into flannelette Spiderman pyjamas. Shane was already contemplating how he was going to move the small boy to the camp bed they had set out in the rec room without waking him but for the moment, he just leant into Jack's side a little more, let the taller man's arm slip around his shoulders.

"Do you mind if we stay here tonight?" He asked softly so as not to break the conversation in the room.

"Of course," Jack mumbled back into Schofield's hair, now (mostly) devoid of flour.

He could sleep on a couch or the pair of them could try and squeeze onto Jack's regulation single bunk.  
Single bunk sounded like a good idea.

Beside him, the little boy stirred in his sleep. Instinctively, Shane's hand came down to stroke soothing circles on his back until his breathing evened out again and his eyes flickered behind long lashes in the whirlwind dreams of the very young. Bree wouldn't be back until tomorrow. They still had a few hours left in which to play family.

And after that, they would get to experience the best part of babysitting - hyped up on sugar and addicted to anime, they could send him home.  
Until next time.


	3. Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed

**A/N: **I'm pretty convinced that I have some of the best readers on the planet. Seriously, you guys are amazing. You've been so patient with my ridiculously slow updates and so kind in your reviews. You've been supportive of every crazy idea I've decided to commit to paper – even the mpreg and that's saying something! Every time I see that the hit counter has gone up, it's like an electronic hug. You guys make my day, week, month, year.

So having established how awesome you are, why did none of you point out to me the glaring, stupidly huge mistake in the first Interlude? :p

Paula Riley is meant to be dead. She is not going to be at her son's wedding to put flowers in button holes or to cry.

Silly, silly me.

At some point, I will fix that but in all honesty, my muses are giving me such trouble at the moment that the idea of going back and trying to rewrite that chapter is going to be a bad idea.

Speaking of really awesome readers, this Interlude is for GoddessofOlympia, partly because it's her birthday (I'm a bad person, it was your birthday when I started writing this… sorry it's so late), partly because she's had a really rough time of late and partly just because she's my friend.  
So for the Goddess, I hope this turns out good!

(You can also blame her for slowing down my updates even more by introducing me to the wicked world of tumblr :p)

Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed

They had found it in the hospital gift shop. Hidden amongst flowers in various degrees of wilted and teddy bears in blue and pink, sending out congratulations, or bearing the legend "get well soon." It had fuzzy brown fur and overly long droopy ears that covered up the slightly dopey look on its face. Inside those ears was the softest, palest pink velveteen.

A large red ribbon bow completed the picture.

"He's going to kill you," Buck Riley Junior said matter-of-factly, crossing his thick arms across his chest and yet he made no move to intervene, a small smirk barely passing his lips.

"I don't even care," Jack Taylor responded.

He had spent the last twenty-four hours watching Shane Schofield lying utterly still. Even his chest was barely rising and falling with shallow, pained breaths. Broken ribs would do that to you; alongside having your heart stopped and restarted for the second time. He looked a complete mess. His wounds had been covered in soft white bandages that stood out starkly against the sickening criss-crossed burn marks that now marred Schofield's entire back.  
Like the signature scars that divided his eyes, Shane would bear those marks for the rest of his life.

Finally, in the early hours of that morning, he had stirred, even woken briefly before falling back into a restless sleep, tossing and turning in his usual fashion. Even disturbed, his rest looked more peaceful now than the awful limbo of unconsciousness.

In the thirty-six hours since their return from the (classified) (supposedly… having a DIA friend had its advantages) incident at Dragon Island, Jack hadn't left his side. He had never been so grateful to wake up to bruises on his shins care of Shane kicking out in his sleep.

The harrowing past few days had seen Jack move through the entire emotional spectrum – after bone deep fear and endless stress, relief had come like a welcome rain following a long draught. It had left him feeling giddy and a little silly.

And Mother had encouraged him.

Jack tucked the soft toy rabbit under Schofield's arm, careful not to disturb the drips still disappearing into the bruised skin.

Wrapped around the soft fur, Shane's arm looked all the more battered – burns and bruises viciously purple against pale skin.

Jack hadn't realised how much it would physically pain him to see Schofield like this.

He lingered, half-sitting on the side of the bed just long enough to press the back of his hand briefly against Schofield's cheek; run his thumb along the shell of his ear, one of the only unbruised body parts visible. He couldn't express how glad it made him to feel that the skin was warm.

But he didn't stay long, pulling his hand away and standing back. Neither of them had quite mastered the art of public displays of affection and Jack wasn't alone in his bedside vigil.  
Schofield's former – now Jack's – recon unit had taken to keeping watch in turns outside the hospital room.  
Book II hovered silently but steadily around the edges, a calming and sure presence.  
And Mother, well, Jack sure as hell wasn't going to try to make her leave. He'd never win that fight.

Even Zack and Emma had dropped in briefly to visit.

Veronique Champion's doctors were doing an admirable job of keeping her in her own hospital room until she was properly healed herself but Jack felt sure that situation wouldn't last much longer. How she would react when she met him, Jack thought was less predictable.

And Baba was still in no state to be visiting anyone.

Shane stirred briefly under the touch. His closed eyes flickered with dreams but didn't open. Instead, he shifted in the bed, curling in on himself a little and his grip around the soft toy tightened instinctively.

Schofield's thin hospital gown did little to hide his marine's physique. Where it fell open at his chest, it revealed his lithe but carved planes of it. The bruises on the arms wrapped around the toy couldn't disguise their well-defined musculature. Against all the bandages and bruises and burns and tubes snaking from his body, without even the added effect of the scars, meeting each other in perfect lines over his closed eyes, the bunny looked horrendously out of place, perverse even.

It also looked damn funny.

Mother guffawed – the first time someone had laughed in the hospital room and the tension in the room noticeably lifted.

"Someone get me a camera," she said.

"He's really going to kill both of you when he wakes," Book II replied drily but he handed over his phone anyway.

As Mother snapped half a dozen black-mail worthy shots, Jack found himself smiling. He really, really didn't care as long as Shane did, in fact, wake up.

**A/N (2): **This was actually meant to be a drabble… somehow it got a little bigger, like they always do. Also, if someone would be so kind as to draw this scene for me, I will love you forever. Like, seriously, I will offer my first born child in exchange for art of this.


	4. Too Afraid to Fly So He Never Did Land

**A/N: **Since the whole "guess the song for each title" idea didn't really work out, I thought I'd just explain why I picked each one. Okay, here goes.

Interlude 1: Romeo Take Me, funnily enough, comes from Taylor Swift's Love Story. As I said in the authors notes, I was going to call it "This Way Became My Journey" from Enya's Book of Days because that's the song I want to walk down the aisle to but I settled on the other because it's a song that never fails to make me smile. Taylor's music is light-hearted and joyful and a bit of fun, the sort of atmosphere that I wanted to create for a wedding scene. Plus of course, with the bride being called Juliet, what else was I supposed to do?

Interlude 2: A Bee Can Sting a Bear comes from Little People, sung by Gavroche in Les Mis. If you've only seen the movie you might have to do a little digging to find the full version as it was cut from the show in the 80's I think. Don't know why, it's my favourite song in the show! I chose it not only because it's a gorgeous little song about the strength of childhood but also because I imagine that's the sort of attitude that Shane Schofield might have had a child. And of course, those marines will know not to underestimate a five year old again…

Interlude 3: Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed is from Superman by Five for Fighting which is the song I most associate with Schofield. Just listen to it, you'll understand (I recommend the boyce avenue cover, it's gorgeous). I particularly love that hero's perspective – that even the best man is still just a man, one who dreams and hurts and is just trying to do his best with a heavy burden. When I see a character as strong as Schofield, funnily enough, I always see them in my head at their most vulnerable moments and I think that song conveys that sense perfectly.

Interlude 4: Too Afraid to Fly so he Never Did Land is from Drops of Jupiter by Train. Again, with the vulnerability thing – Schofield is a character who has lost a lot. When I hear that song, I think it's a song about losing someone (or something) you love. The lyrics are almost bitter and resentful and yet the song itself is so damn catchy and happy and almost celebratory, another song that never fails to make me smile. Schofield could have done that, become bitter and resentful but instead, he bounces back, he's resilient and tough, always pulls through with a smile – like the song.

So there you have it. Also, this author's note is going to be way longer than this chapter itself as I'm determined this time to really write a drabble, a story of less than 100 words, just in case you're unfamiliar with the terminology. I think it's an interesting challenge to convey the full depth of meaning with so few words. This is set sometime pre-Area 7.

I managed to keep it to 110… close enough.

**Rating for this Interlude: **K

Too Afraid to Fly So He Never Did Land

She found him standing beside the airstrip in the early hours of the morning, arms crossed and expression tight. She though if she could see through those glasses, those shockingly blue eyes might be wistful.

"Do you miss it?" Dallas asked, approaching him from behind.

Schofield didn't turn, didn't give any indication he'd heard her.

In front of them, a very recognisable plane lumbered down the runway in a rare peaceful moment with no press present. It didn't quite cut through the air like a fighter jet but the soar of the engines and the smell of hot tires on asphalt were close enough.

"More than you'll ever know."


End file.
